Eli Dollarhide

The Archaeological Water Histories of Oman (ArWHO) Project began in 2011 with a focus on the role of water availability in the long-term trajectories of ancient civilizations. From 2011 to 2018, the project surveyed Wilayat Yanqul and adjacent areas. This included wide-area reconnaissance survey as well as systematic sampling of a 100 km2 area northeast of the town of Yanqul. This paper reports basic results of the survey, including numbers of archaeological sites documented, and baseline analysis of associations with water resources. Important results include Paleolithic finds, discovery of new Neolithic sites, insights about Bronze Age monuments, new understanding of Iron Age trade, and broader understanding of small Islamic era settlements in mountainous hinterlands.

This paper presents the preliminary results of the 2018-2019 field season of the Bat Archaeological Project (BAP), which has conducted research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat (Sultanate of Oman) since 2007. Recent research by the authors targets ancient settlement located in the site’s dense third millennium BC contexts. Over the course of Winter 2018-2019 BAP surveyed and conducted excavation of three test trenches in a 35 ha area. Over 200 features were documented, of which 60+ date to the Bronze Age. Excavations identified: (1) Hafit or early Umm an-Nar period mudbrick architecture east of Matariya tower; (2) intact Umm an-Nar deposits east of Rojoom; and (3) evidence for widely varying ancient topography on the northern edge of what is now the wadi plain. The analysis of ceramic and lithic artifacts collected over the season provide data on the chronological dynamism and function of different areas within the site. While the strongest material signatures date to the Islamic periods and Bronze Age, evidence attests to the site being occupied continuously since at least the Neolithic. Taken together, these preliminary results reveal shifting patterns of occupation and land-use on the Bat landscape over the past 5000 years. The presence of this complex palimpsest at Bat suggests that such patterns may also exist at similar multi-period sites.

Soft‐stone vessels (made of the rock chloritite, which is comprised of the mineral chlorite) are an important component of the material culture record of ancient southeast Arabia. Given the prevalence of soft‐stone vessels in domestic and funerary contexts , and the natural geological occurrence of chloritite in the region, archaeologists have long suspected that soft‐stone vessels could have been produced in United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Oman. However, over many decades of research very few pieces of worked raw material or unfinished vessel fragments have been recovered in Arabia. This changed dramatically in 2015 with the discovery of the Iron Age village of Aqir al‐Shamoos where thousands of raw, worked, and unfinished pieces attest to soft‐ stone vessel manufacture. Aqir al‐Shamoos continues to yield new insights regarding soft‐stone vessel production, but the source of raw material used to craft these objects initially remained unknown as no natural chloritite deposits had been found in the immediate vicinity of the site. We present results of hyperspectral satellite imagery target detection used to search for natural surface occurrences of chloritite near Aqir al‐Shamoos. Despite limitations in carbonate and phyllosilicate mineral discrimination , field survey of the satellite detection results revealed chloritite outcrops in the ophiolite formation mountains 1.4 km northwest of Aqir al‐Shamoos near the newly discovered archaeological site of 'Waby al‐Zady. Reflectance spectroscopy (0.35–2.5 μm) of material from multiple chloritite sources indicates that chloritite from 'Waby al‐Zady is spectrally very similar to material at Aqir al‐Shamoos but quite different in comparison with material from other locations. These findings indicate that: (1) hyperspectral satellite imagery target detection can be useful for chloritite prospection, (2) 'Waby al‐Zady (or somewhere very nearby) was probably the source of chloritite used at Aqir al‐Shamoos, and (3) chloritite reflection spectra may be useful for distinguishing chloritite from different sources.

The Bat Archaeological Project (BAP) has conducted research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat since 2007. While studies initially focused on the site's monumental Bronze Age tombs and "towers" (Cable & al-Jabri 2018; Thornton et al. 2016), recent and ongoing research now targets settlement contexts located between the well-known monuments. Results of recent excavations in occupational contexts at the Settlement Slope, al-Khafaji, and al-Khutm (Swerida 2017) enable BAP to make refined functional and chronological interpretations of discovered settlement materials. During the 2018-19 field season, BAP began a survey of a 35ha area within the Bat Heartland with the goal of filling gaps in the map of the Bronze Age site. Over 200 features were identified, of which 60+ date to the Bronze Age. Targeted excavations identified (1) Hafit period mudbrick architecture east of Matariya tower; (2) intact Umm an-Nar deposits across from the Settlement Slope; and (3) varying ancient topography in the center of the site. Preliminary results reveal shifting patterns of occupation and land-use on the Bat landscape over the course of the third millennium BC. The discovery of this complex palimpsest at Bat suggests that such patterns may also exist at similar Bronze Age sites.

The Umm an-Nar period of southeast Arabia, spanning 700 years (ca. 2700-2000 BCE) and 150,000 km2, is widely recognized as an important phase of blossoming socioeconomic complexity and cultural development. Yet, despite the ever-increasing body of excavated contexts on the Oman Peninsula, archaeologists of the region struggle to define phases within this period recognizable beyond a single site. This chronological ambiguity limits scholarly ability to understand the developmental processes at play within the Umm an-Nar period.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat is the ideal location to address this issue due to its continuous occupation throughout the third millennium, the presence of broad stratified contexts, diverse material culture, and regional comparanda. This paper presents the foundations of a phased Umm an-Nar chronology developed from these materials. Excavations conducted on the Bat landscape since 2008 support the existence of three sub-phases within the site's Umm an-Nar occupation. Major indicators of phase changes are: shifts in ceramic styles and production techniques; changes in architectural construction strategies and building layouts; and temporal markers such as breaks in stratigraphy or construction episodes. Phases are, when possible, anchored with radiocarbon dating. When combined with phasing developed at other stratified sites, such as Hili, the defined trends in Umm an-Nar material culture at Bat become cornerstones in a regional chronology that has the potential to refine archaeological understanding of the Umm an-Nar period.